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Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Actor TOM HOPPER stars with Emma Roberts in SPACE CADET, directed by Liz W. Garcia. In this interview, Tom talks about his character in the film, about the message of the movie and about his desire of going on a space trip. In SPACE CADET, ever since she was a young girl, Tiffany “Rex” Simpson (Emma Roberts) has dreamed of hopping on a rocket ship and experiencing the mysteries of outer space. But following the death of her mother, who championed her starry aspirations, Rex’s life has taken a more earthbound trajectory. Now, at 28, Rex is a bartender, sometime alligator wrestler and full-time party girl in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Still, it might not be too late to fulfill her dreams. Determined not to let her limited education and lack of scientific training hold her back, Rex — with the help of her supportive best friend, Nadine (Poppy Liu) gets herself into NASA’s prestigious and cutthroat astronaut training program in Houston. There, she makes both fast friends and bitter enemies of her quirky and competitive classmates, while Rex’s instincts, mechanical skills, quick wits and moxie unexpectedly make her one of the top trainees. Rex also attracts the romantic attention of the program’s deputy director, Logan (Tom Hopper), even as NASA administrators start closing in on the truth about her. SPACE CADET premieres globally July 4th, 2024, on Prime Video.
Transcript
00:00Tom, what attracted you to this project in the first place?
00:05So actually, well, at the time, I'd been reading a lot of scripts and none of them had really kind
00:10of, I was looking for, I remember looking for a movie at that time and I was like, nothing's really
00:15kind of making me tick. And I remember wanting a good comedy, you know, I wanted something that
00:20made me laugh and, and some of those scripts did that, but I didn't have the right role in it,
00:26you know, and then this kind of ticked all the boxes. It was so much fun. It also had like a
00:30hidden message. It was female driven. And I, I just really loved the role of Logan. I saw my
00:38version of it. That big thing for me is like, when I'm reading a script is, can I see my version of
00:43that guy, you know? And, and when I read this, I, my wife always says that she knows that when I'm
00:50reading a script, I like, because I start reading the lines of the character that I'm looking at.
00:54So I was guilty as charged on that one. So, and then, yeah, I met Liz, the director,
01:02and it kind of ticked all the boxes for me.
01:07Why do you think people is so fascinated about space? And now that the space tourism is a reality,
01:15would you go on a space trip? Would you like to go?
01:19I think eventually, yeah. I think when it's been tried and tested a little bit,
01:23I'd be up for it. I think people are fascinated with space because it's the unknown, right? It's
01:29like why the same reason why people are fascinated with the ocean is because we don't know what's
01:34down there. And we don't know what's up there. I'm, I for one, I'm very fascinated with what's
01:39up there. You know, I, I, I can't believe for a second that we're the only species
01:46in our galaxy, let alone the universe and what it all is up there. I start to go a bit cross-eyed
01:52if I think too hard about what's up there. So I think that's part of it, right? Because we're only,
01:56we're only subject to what we know on this planet. So I think there's a big thing about what's,
02:01what's beyond it. How was working with Emma and the rest of the cast?
02:07Oh, we had so much fun. It was a great, it was a brilliant ensemble cast, actually.
02:12All the, all the guys who play all the different space cadets, you know, they're,
02:15they're brilliant and we had so much fun. And then working with Emma and Gab very closely,
02:22you know, we, we had a really great time. They were both brilliant to work with and,
02:26you know, great collaborators along with Liz, the director. It was brilliant. We had a really good
02:31time. What would you say is the message of this film? I think, I think the message is
02:39chase your dreams, you know, go after your dreams, which I'm a big advocate of. I think
02:45that anything is possible if you put your mind to it and you, you, you put a plan in place to get
02:51there. Or if you cheat on your resume as well, that also works. So yeah, I think that's the
02:57really important message behind it. Before filming, did you do any kind of research?
03:03Yeah, I read, I read some books and I read, my favourite one was Spaceman by Mike Massimino,
03:11who's in the movie as well. I chatted a lot with Mike about his book, you know, because I,
03:17because I actually did the audio book. So I was listening to his voice. He reads the audio book.
03:23So I was listening to his voice while in the gym and stuff. And he was telling me all about his
03:27life as an astronaut. And it's so interesting and his journey to become, and it really was his
03:35dream to become an astronaut from a young kid. And he just followed that path and put
03:40everything in place that he needed to do to get there and never wavered from it. And I believe
03:45that's what you need to do for any dream that you have is you just walk towards it, put a plan in
03:50place and walk towards it. And that's what he did, you know, and he's a great advocate of the space
03:54programme.
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